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Learn to Burn: Updating R/W Burn for Standard

“Some have said there is no subtlety to destruction. You know what? They’re dead.”
—Jaya Ballard, task mage

Today I’m going to talk about a strategy that is near and dear to my heart, namely, tapping mountains and melting faces. Those who follow CFB might recognize my name. My friend and mentor James Fazzolari was kind enough to include me on his testing team leading up to GP: Melbourne and I had the privilege of helping him break standard. James attracted a lot of attention with his perfect 9-0 day one and top 32 finish playing an obscure deck that most people thought wasn’t viable. The deck exploded on MODO from there, as it lined up well against the dominant strategies. Three Burn decks in the top 8 of GP: Beijing solidified Burn as a legitimate standard strategy and possibly tier one deck. Since then, R/W Burn has been my go to deck for standard events. It would come as no surprise to those that know me that I chose burn as my deck for CMT Toronto. For those of you who missed the coverage (view it here: https://www.mtgcanada.com/canadian-magic-tour-2014/wizardtower-com-cmt2014-toronto-may-10/) I played the following list:

This is the deck that I, along with my testing group and I have been working on since Born of the Gods was released. The only new toys from Journey Into Nyx I used were Banishing Light and Harness by Force. Harness by Force won me a match I had no business winning in Round 2 when it borrowed a pair of Loxodon Smiters vs Naya Control and you can see me use Banishing Light into Banishing Light to deal with a Whip of Erebos and a Desecration Demon in the Round 3 feature match. I was very happy with both cards.
I went into the CMT blind with no idea about what kind of meta to expect, and in hindsight I wish I had made a few adjustments to the deck. I was basically unprepared for Esper Control to shift to straight U/W control, and those were my two loses on the day. After Omar Beldon spanked me in the finals, I had a long think about what went wrong and did a lot of testing. I’m proposing the following changes in an effort to chase the metagame:

While I was initially skeptical of this card in a burn list, its success at last weekend’s SCG Open meant that I had to test it. In hindsight, I wish I was running it over Young Pyromancer, because while I love a stream of 1/1 Elementals, Eidolon of the Great Revel is just stronger in the U/W matchup. It may just be because people haven’t learned to play around it correctly yet, but the Pyrostatic Pillar Bear has been very strong in testing. In the match ups where it is bad (like GR monsters), it is a straight swap for Satyr Firedancer.

I played Toil // Trouble over Firedrinker Satyr, reasoning that Nyx-Fleece Ram would block him all day. After more testing, I have come to the conclusion that I’d really rather have a Fire breathing Jackal Pup that can chew through a ram with the help of a shock. As you can see in the finals video, ignoring the Ram didn’t go so well for me. Firedrinker Satyr is also useful against Mono Black Devotion and B/g, although he will get swept up by Golgari Charm.

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I was tempted to play Banishing Light as a catch all, but I’m going to go back to Wear // Tear as additional one mana answers to Nyx-Fleece Ram and any other problematic enchantments. The one mana converted casting cost makes it a pretty good tempo play in most situations. It can also hit an Elixir of Immortality or a Whip of Erebos on occasion as well, which is just icing on the cake.

A trusted old friend. As long as U/W is staying straight U/W or splashing any colour other than black, he’s basically untouchable. Sure, they have Supreme Verdict, but you have Boros Charm. Other people are playing Dictate of the Twin Gods, I think Stormbreath Dragon is our best chance at having am “I win” card against UW. I played a game where I cast Dictate of the Twin Gods on the end step, my opponent let it resolve, then countered my burn spell and proceeded to kill me with double damage Mutavaults. I didn’t enjoy that.